Improved mode of treating tanned leather



UNITED STATES PATENT; OFFICE.

BENJAMIN H. LIGHTFOOT, OF PHlLADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVED MODE OF TREATING TANNED LEATHER.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 43,120, dated June 14, 1864.

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN H. LIGHT- FOOT, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, have invented an Improvement in the Treatment of Tanned Leather; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

Before describing my present invention it will be necessary to allude to my patent of the 17th of November, 1863, in which I claimed the treatment of tanned leather by the application to the same of petroleum or any oily hydrocarbon holding parafline in solution, in combination with tallow or its equivalent.

The mode of applying this composition to tanned leather for the purpose of currying or dressing the same, and as described in the aforesaid patent, is essentially the same as that practiced in using the ordinary dubbing, composed of whale or other fish oils and tallow.

In carrying out my patented invention I discovered that crude petroleum alone or any of the distilled coal-oils might be applied with good effect to the curryin g or dressing of many kinds of leather without the intervention of tallow or its equivalent. For instance, the crude or distilled oils may be applied to thin I calf-skins or sheep and goat skins, or all kinds of morocco, by rubbing the oil into the same, the curryin g or dressing of these skins being thereby accomplished in the most satisfactory manner and in a very short space of time.

The oils to be used may be the crude petroleum or distilled oils, treated at suitable temperature with either sulphuric, nitric, muriatic, or nitro-muriatic acids, caustic alkalies,

or alkaline earths, or their compounds, with or without the application of steam, and in many instances it may be advisable to mix any of these preparations of oil with any of the usual fish or straits oil.

I claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent- The currying or dressing of tanned leather by applying to the samecrude petroleum or any of the mineral oils, treated substantially in the manner described.

In testimony whereof I have signed my name to this specification in the presence of two subscribing witnesses.

BENJAMIN 'H. LIGHTFOOT. Witnesses:

JOHN WHITE, CHARLES HoWs0N. 

